Hello readers of my very wordy holiday journal, I went fishing with Ron Stewart today, phone +64-03-442-9966. I think he is a very good guide with a reasonable rate 650 per day… but that said, price isn’t everything… anyway, I think he is a patient guide, who produces many opportunities, a bit like bonefish on Christmas island, there are so many shots, if you stuff up the first few, its okay, there will be more coming. Whatever it is, we were fishing for brown trout… in the morning light, we sighted and cast to about 20 browns, ranging from 3-6lbs but had multiple refusals do the dry fly but the nymph had many lookers but no one seemed to commit as we worked our way along… maybe our nymphs were not juicy enough…

At around 12:15, Ron announced, “no fish, no lunch”. Shortly after Ron yelled SET!! And a fish was on! She had gently sipped the green beetle fly off the surface… she went 4lbs! I was over the moon to have landed my first kiwi trout, a brown, on a dry fly… these browns were not easy to see, and I found it difficult to get the fish to eat the fly too… to be brutally honest, my concentration wavered… anyway, I hooked my second brown trout a few casts later, again on the same beetle fly and a 3lbs tippet… this time, it was a much bigger fish of about 6lbs… it gave me various hair raising moments when it made a run with the current flow and took me down till I had a few wraps of olive green airflow chalkstream platinum fly line left on my reel… well at this point I managed to stop the fish’s run. Ron grabbed the back of my vest and walked me backwards to another area to play the fish in lesser current having hooked the fish right in the middle of the river. The hair-raising moments, walking backwards and the bent rod were far from over, as I pulled the fish towards me via the reel he tried a dive. Immediately I tip toed and stretched out pushing the rod as high as I possibly could to try and coax the fish out of the sanctuary, which it was heading towards, after all he had the advantage of being in his own domain. Well, 40 feet of line taken in, and two attempted dives into the weeds and I had this big trout circling the edges of the weeds, thrashing around and avoiding Ron’s net… eventually he was tired and slid into the net. It was huge!!! I thought this long skinny brown trout wouldn’t fit into Ron’s net, but it did… we estimated it would weigh about 6-7 pounds and was labeled an “average sized fish”… this statement made me wonder how big would a big fish be, which apparently is somewhere between 8-12lbs. Minutes later, I stupidly missed yet another “normal” brownie when I set the hook too slowly, giving the fish time to spit the fly out and when I did set, the beetle was ripped up from mid-water (having just been spat out by the trout) and flew right at me like a missile… not the nicest experience while trout fishing. I yet missed another consecutively when I set too fast, whipping the fly out of his/her mouth. We saw many other trout in the backcountry, we… actually Ron spotted and I tried tempting a big [10-12lbs brown] for over 45 minutes with various flies, hoppers, beetles, green humpy, yellow humpy, caddis, Royal Wulff, PTN, PTN variant, had a look at the PTN and PTN variant, finally spooked when nymph drifted down with weed caught on hook point. Well, it was not to be, I had no other luck with various other smaller trout around 5lbs although I had some follows but no other solid takes.
Weather was cool in the morning with southerly wind until 3pm then a stiff breeze started whipping over us while tempting the big browns… so we had to give up fishing and start heading back. While wading back and fishing, I had a nice light coloured brown trout that trundled along, saw the nymph, and followed it all the way to my rod tip but didn’t’ commit by trundling a little faster and eating the fly. I estimate it to be about 5lbs. Ron is an exceptional guide who carries many flies and has a plan B in case all goes wrong. Well I’ll say it again for impact in case I haven’t said it before. I fished a light, light leader of 3.5lbs throughout the day…

I’ve decided and conclude that wild trout live in some of the most beautiful places on earth
Its great fishing in NZ, no bears to worry about… however, a "short " 12 feet+ of leader with a pair of nymphs isn’t the combination easiest to cast, especially into a stiff breeze- which gets real strong… i think i will need to re learn how to cast in order to become a better and more consistent caster… sadly, I wasn’t casting in top form all throughout the trip, and need to be able to place the fly faster and more accurately. We had dinner at Solera [hope I spelt that right] which was real nice, but I preferred the hotel food… solera was nicely cooked and flavoursome but the hotel food was better!
Mum & dad went to Paradise and came back… not sure where else they went while I was fishing but when I came back, they had been slacking at the hotel for a bit…